The A500 was one of the most popular Amiga models ever made, partly
because it was extremely cheap in comparison to the big box models and
partly because it was targetted almost exclusively at gamers. Although
the A500+ looks almost identical to the A500, there are considerable
differences between the two models. The A500 was usually supplied with
the A520 to allow it to be connected directly to a standard television.
The A500 was supplied with 512K of CHIP RAM by default. Earlier
revisions of the A500 could only address 512K of CHIP but later
revisions containing the 8372 Agnus could address 1MB (but were still
supplied with 512K). Early versions of the A500 had a red power LED and
a green floppy drive LED, whenever the audio filters were activated the
power LED would switch off. This was later changed to a green power LED
and amber floppy LED and again the power LED would be switched off
whenever the audio filters were activated. In hind-sight this was
probably not considered a sensible indication of the audio filters
because the machine could appear to be switched off, even though it
wasn't, so Commodore finally changed it so that the power LED was only
dimmed when the audio filters were activated and this remained with the
A500+. Later A500's may use the same motherboard revisions that the
A500+ used, including the ECS chipset. This was probably during a
transition period when moving from the standard A500 to the standard
A500+. Commodore often
used 'old stock' to save money. Apparently you can spot Rev 8/ECS based
A500s my checking the logo near the LEDs. If it's an A500 logo instead
of a commodore logo, then it's a newer A500.